I was nervous. I wanted the gift to be perfect. I wanted to make her cry happy tears. I wanted to be her hero. Damn it, I wanted to be her everything, just like she was mine.

“Carter, can you tell your sister to turn off the landmines? I’m almost ready to leave,” Georgia yelled from the kitchen.

“On it,” I yelled back as I looked around our new home.

My brother, sister and I owned over a thousand acres in the deserted mountain area of North Carolina. After the explosion we’d died in, we’d lived with Nancy and Caleb while our own house was built a mile down the road. It wasn’t as large but it was equally as beautiful. It made Georgia happy and that was all that mattered to me.

I hadn’t had a place to call home in years—never wanted one until my crazy cat woman came into my life and turned it upside down. Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I was a pain in the ass and working on forms of communication that didn’t include holes in the plaster. But Georgia said I was a work in progress. I could live with that.

We were never going to be a white picket fence kind of couple, but what we had was perfect for us. Every day we somehow became a little less broken. Waking up with her in my arms calmed my raging soul and brought light into my dark world.

Georgia’s blood had lost all of the poison, but her enhanced senses were probably always going to be part of her. She’d talked about having plastic surgery on her scarring, but decided against it. I loved her scars as much as I loved her. They were her battle wounds and I worshiped them on a regular basis. My battle scarring was more internal, but with time and talk I was beginning to heal as well.

“Your sister wanted a vanilla cake with chocolate icing,” she said with a bright smile and frosting on the tip of her nose. “I think this is a good one.”

“All of them are good ones,” I replied wondering if the time was right. “Umm, I’d like to give something to you.”

“I have something for you too,” she said in a rush of excitement. “Let me get it.”

She tore off to the bedroom, her wild blonde hair flying behind her. Her beauty still stunned me. I had more than half a mind to blow off my siblings and chase her to our bedroom. I couldn’t get enough of her—would never be able to get enough of her.

“Here,” she said shyly, handing me a large envelope.

Taking it in my hands I handed her my gift that looked alarmingly like the gift she’d just handed me. The confusion on both of our faces would have made me laugh if I wasn’t so edgy about giving her this particular gift.

“Should we open them at the same time?” she asked with eyes shining.

“Yep,” I said. “On mi.”

Her laugh filled the room and every dark corner of my heart.

“Do, re, mi,” Georgia said and tore into her gift.

She was faster than I was and froze when she discovered what I’d done.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, grinning like a loon. “Open yours. Now.”

And I did.

I shook my head and started to laugh.

“No fucking way,” I said.

“Way,” she shot back, as her eyes filled with tears—happy tears. “Can we go twice?”

“We can do whatever the hell we want, Georgia from Georgia.”

I held airline tickets to Austria in my hands along with chalet reservations and tickets to the Sound of Music tour. And Georgia held the exact same packet—different dates—in hers. What were the odds? But then again I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. She was my soul mate—my other half—the light to my dark. The Maria to my Captain.

“Wanna get married there?” she asked.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I inquired with a grin. “I’m the man and I’m supposed to do that.”

“Whatever,” she said with an eye roll and a laugh. “I beat you to it. So?”

“So?”

“You gonna marry me?”

“Hmmm, can I think about it?” I teased.

Her second eye roll was enormous. It was fucking delightful and hot.

“No. You can’t think about it. You will answer me now or I’ll never ask again. Unless you say no and then I’ll ask again. Probably every Tuesday.”

“Yes. I will marry you. I will marry you a thousand times if that’s what you want,” I told her. “But how about this…”

“What?” she asked as she threw her arms around me and kissed me until I was definitely sure we wouldn’t be seeing my brother and sister tonight.

“Let’s get married in Austria,” I suggested.

“Yessssssss,” she yelled and kissed me again. Pulling back she scrunched her nose in thought. “Do you think Nancy and Caleb would be upset if we didn’t go over there tonight?”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

Wrapping her legs around my waist, I moved us to our bedroom in record time. My dick—or thingie as Georgia was still fond of calling it—was so hard I was in pain. All she had to do was look at me and I was hard.

“You want to climb every mountain tonight?” I whispered as she giggled at my ridiculousness.

“Until we find our dream,” she said in a voice so sexy I was sure we were going to be busy all night long.

And that was fine by me.

In fact, it was more than fine. Georgia was everything I was missing in my life that I didn’t think I’d find and then some. There would be no so long, farewells for us. There would only ever be something good.